Speeding motorist says aliens to blame

Going too fast? Finger ET

The Northumbria Safety Camera Partnership, aka "Safe speed for life" has just published its top 10 excuses for geting nobbled by a speed, sorry, safety camera. Top of the list is alien-induced trance, closely followed by blaming excessive velocity on a passing aircraft. The list is culled from the letters received by fixed-penalty units in which motorists attempt to extricate themselves from copping a fine for speeding.

Northumbria Safety Camera Partnership manager Ray King said: "Some drivers seem to think that if they tell a good enough story then they will get off, which unfortunately rarely works. It is quite amazing the lengths some drivers will go to to avoid £60 and three points, when really the alternative is extremely simple - keep within the speed limit."

Quite so - just like the driver of the 406mph Peugeot we reported on back in January, who should have known better than to push his petrol-driven rocket beyond the limits of credulity for the benefit of the cameras.

But we digress. The top ten list is:

I had passed out after seeing flashing lights, which I believed to be UFOs in the distance. The flash of the camera brought me round from my trance.

I was in the airport’s flight path and I believe the camera was triggered by a jet overhead, not my car.

I had a severe bout of diarrhoea and had to speed to a public toilet.

There was a strong wind behind my car which pushed me over the limit.

My friend had just chopped his fingers off and I was rushing the fingers to hospital.

The vibrations from the surfboard I had on the roof rack set off the camera.

I had to rush my dying hamster to the vets.

A violent sneeze caused a chain reaction where my foot pushed down harder on the accelerator.

There was a suspected case of foot and mouth and I had to rush to see the cow concerned.

The only way I could demonstrate my faulty clutch was to accelerate madly.

Good stuff. Might we suggest, though, that there is an absolute cracker missing from this litany of shame: "I saw the chief constable in charge of traffic for Greater Manchester go past me at 104mph and decided to give chase and effect a citizen's arrest." Yup, it works for us. ®